OK so the chapter is FINALLY here. I'm so sorry about this everyone, my beta and I were experiencing some technical difficulties and for whatever reason I could not recieve my chapter whenever it was sent to me. But it's here now and hopefully I can write another one by the time I start school on Monday. That was I can actually meet my goal for the week. But again, really sorry about the wait. I know some of you have been waiting a while for this and I thank each and every one of you. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I look forward to reading the reviews you leave! Peace Out.
~Wolfie

Chapter 13 House of Dust

"Amber would you stop walking so close to me? I'm going to trip," Patricia whispered harshly. The five Sibuna members were slowly and silently making their way up stairs to the third floor. The only light they had to go by came from Fabian's cell phone, which cast the walls with eerie shadows.

At the very top of the staircase was a large, heavy wooden door. "Well this is it," Nina whispered. "You guys ready to do some searching?"

"Maybe we should head back guys. I have a bad feeling about this," Alfie protested.

"We're already here Alfie. Besides, we have to find the first clue." Patricia said in an annoyed voice, "Unless, you want to stand guard while the rest of us search." Even though there was very little light, Alfie knew that Patricia was smirking at him.

With a quick glance back down the dark staircase Alfie then turned up to face Fabian and Nina. "Just open the door." Before Fabian got the chance to turn the knob, the door swung open on its own. With a startled squeal Amber clung onto Patricia's arm while the red head did her best to silence her.

"OK that was so scary. I don't like this idea anymore either. Alfie, why don't you and I just head back to bed and let the others look for the clue?" Amber asked hopefully.

"Amber just calm down, it was probably a draft or something. We're all in this together, so no one is leaving until we find what we came for," Fabian whispered irritably. The blonde frowned slightly but nodded in understanding.

Cautiously, the five of them stepped through the doorway and took in the sight before them. For the most part the hallway looked just like the floor below them, only everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. It was obvious no one had been on this floor for quite a while. "Any suggestions of where we should start?" Nina asked.

"Well the third floor isn't actually the size of the rest of the house. It's just this one hallway, so we don't have many rooms to check. But I don't know what is what, I've never actually been up here," Amber admitted. Patricia wheeled around to face her, her eyes flaring.

"What do you mean you've never been up here before? Really Amber! We can't search this entire place. It'll take us days!"

"What if we split up? We could go three and two and make better time," Alfie suggested timidly.

Fabian scowled ever so slightly, but then his face instantly brightened up. "Alfie that's actually not a bad idea," he said. "We can cover more ground if we split up. What does everyone think?" The rest of the group all nodded in agreement.

"All right, so how 'bout Amber, Alfie and I take the rooms to the left and Nina and Fabian can get the ones to the right?" Patricia offered. As Nina felt her face flush slightly, she realized how thankful she was for the darkness in the hallway.

"Let's do this. Everyone be careful and good luck. If you guys find something call Fabian's phone, it'll be easier," Nina instructed. The others all nodded and the five of the split up.

"Just like old times huh?" Fabian asked as they walked up to the first of the doors. Nina smiled and nodded as she thought back to the days when she and Fabian would sneak up to the attic to find clues about the cup of Ankh.

The door creaked loudly as Fabian pushed it open, causing Nina to cringe. Even though the chances of them getting caught were slim, old habits die hard and Nina didn't want to risk the close calls they had at Anubis House. Peering into the darkness Nina saw that they were in some sort of office, not unlike the one that Mr. Millington used. In the center of the room there was a large wooden desk and one wall was lined with bookshelves. On the far side of the room there was a window covered with a thin white curtain.

"So where do you want to start?" Fabian asked.

"We should probably check the desk first." They crossed the room, leaving a trail of footprints in the dust on the floor. They each opened a drawer and began rummaging through their contents. After several minutes of searching, neither of them was able to find anything.

"Well, this isn't working. Should we try somewhere else?" Fabian finally asked. Nina nodded and just as she was standing up something on the desk caught her eye.

"Fabian," Nina said urgently. "Look at this." She picked up a photo frame that was sitting on the desk and studied it. It was an older photo but Nina could still make out some familiar faces. She was instantly able to spot Mr. Millington; he was the only one with blonde hair. Standing next to him was the man that Nina had heard him talking to the night he disappeared.

"Hey, that's Adriane. And Lazar," Fabian pointed out. He pointed to the pair that had interrogated them. Adriane was sitting in a chair in front of Mr. Millington, next to a much older gentleman that looked strangely familiar to Nina. As Nina stared at the man in the photo, she knew where she had seen him.

"That's the man from the temple. The one that told us to leave! Fabian, I think this is a photo of the Aspída members." Nina studied the picture some more and sure enough, everyone was wearing the same ring that Adriane had shown them. That and all of them were dressed in some sort of strange brown tunic. It was very similar to the one the temple mad had been wearing the day he spoke to Nina.

"What do you think happened here?" Fabian pointed to the left edge of the picture. A jagged line could be seen right at the edge of the picture, where someone had torn the edge of it off. Nina opened her mouth to reply when a loud crash echoed through the entire room.

"What was that?" Nina yelled in alarm. Setting the photo frame back on the desk, Fabian and Nina both ran out of the room and tried to locate the source of the crash. From the end of the hallway Nina could see a faint glow. A glow came from a cell phone as they ran into the room to see lying on the floor, clutching his head. Next to him was a wooden shelf, and some overturned cardboard boxes that had their contents littered across the area. Patricia was standing over her with an obvious scowl on her face that the light from her phone making it even more frightening. Amber stood on the other side of the room with her hand over her mouth in shock.

"What happened?" Fabian whispered sharply.

"Well Captain Klutzy here tripped, hit the wall, and knocked the shelf down," Patricia said. She crossed her arms and huffed in annoyance. Alfie then stood up and brushed the dust off of his pajama pants. Amber, who had finally moved, stood next to Alfie to help brush some of the dust off of his shirt.

Fabian and Nina bent down to restack the boxes that had fallen off the shelf. "This is ridiculous. I mean, this room alone will take hours to search and we're going to have to search through every single box and drawer we can find. It's not like the clue is going to drop out of the sky!"

"I wouldn't be too sure about that Patricia," Nina said in awe. In the palm of her hand sat a box. A perfect sized box to hold a ring. Patricia and Amber both crouched down on the ground to get a better look at it. Carefully, Nina opened the black box and let out a soft gasp. Lying in the middle of the box was a golden ring.

"Yes! Mission accomplished," Fabian said happily. "Looks like our clue did fall out of the sky this time."

"Why couldn't it have been this easy back at Anubis House?" Nina asked jokingly. Everyone chuckled softly as Nina put the ring safely in her bag.

"All right, we have the ring so let's get this stuff cleaned up and then head back downstairs," Patricia suggested. Amber helped Fabian and Nina put everything back in boxes while Patricia and Fabian put the shelf back up on the wall. It didn't take long for them to stack the half dozen boxes on the dusty piece of plywood and soon the five of them were heading for the door.

As Alfie reached for the doorknob, Nina reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Wait!" she said in a very low voice. "I hear footsteps. Someone's coming!" Everyone was silent for a moment as they listened for the sound of footsteps. Sure enough, the sound of a single pair of feet could be heard treading down the hallway. Frantically, Nina spun around to search the room for a hiding place. On the far side of the room there was a stack of boxes about waist high. Nina motioned for everyone to follow her and they quickly ran behind the boxes and sat down on the floor.

There wasn't much space behind the boxes so the five of them were crammed close together. Nina realized that if she was any closer to Fabian, she would probably be in his lap. Just as she tried to scoot a centimeter away from him, the sound of a door opening froze her in her tracks. No one dared to breathe as someone entered the room. The light from a flashlight passed over them, but only briefly. The sound of a female voice then broke the echoing silence. "I could have sworn he left it up here."